


The Nightmare Unravels

by BEVGranger711



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Angst, Dreamish AU, F/F, Finding home, Season 4 Spoilers, This is no dream! This is really happening!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26714197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BEVGranger711/pseuds/BEVGranger711
Summary: Inspired and ripped off from disaster-magnet-runner-five's "Dreamish AU" on Tumblr, where the characters we all know and love wake up and realize that the zombie apocalypse never happened and was some awful/wonderful dream. A story about waking up in a strange, but familiar, safe world, and trying to find your family. A story about learning to live with the trauma that never happened and coming to terms with being a stranger in your own life and body. Spoilers for Season 4 at least. That might change depending on what else I add.
Relationships: Paula Cohen/Maxine Myers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	The Nightmare Unravels

**Author's Note:**

> I rushed to write what I could this morning, so apologies for the lack of editing! There's still more of this story floating around in my head, so maybe I'll add more later. CW: angst?? blanking on what else. sorry, will fix this later if needed!

Maxine leisurely stretched, enjoying the dream she was coming down from. She wasn’t ready to get up, to start the day, and so decided to lay there for a little while longer, eyes closed, a small smile on her lips. 

She couldn’t quite recall the dream, but she knew it had a Paula dressed up as Xena and she knew that was always a good time. She could vaguely remember some others in there as well: Sam wearing an orange floaty for some reason, Five bridal carrying a very disgruntled and injured Janine, and Jody sitting in the corner, knitting and amusingly observing whatever was going on.

She stretched again, and paused. She didn’t recall her mattress being this soft. And she couldn’t feel the familiar lumps either. She shrugged, maybe she was finally getting used to the thing.

She rolled over, eyes still closed, and searched for Paula. To her disappointment, she was not there and that side of the bed was cold, as if it was never slept in. That wasn’t like her.

A brief moment of panic made her finally open up her eyes, and that brief moment exploded into a full on panic attack. 

She shot up from the bed. It was still very dark, but she could see well enough to tell that this wasn’t the room she shared with Paula and Sara. It was much too big, too airy, too much furniture. She lunged around the bed and stubbed her toe on the chest that was at the foot of the bed. Where was she? Had she been kidnapped? If so, why was she put in such a nice, clean room? Even the bed sheets smelled clean! And her clothes! There wasn’t a single stain on her shirt and shorts, no patches, no haphazard sewing. She quickly ran back to the nightstand, looking for a knife, a weapon, something! Where was the usual knife she carried around with her always? 

Quickly finding out that her weapon search was fruitless, she hastily grabbed the lamp on the nightstand, ripping the cord out of the outlet. She briefly paused and thought,  _ outlet? _ , and took a closer look at the nightstand. The lamp was indeed plugged into the outlet on the wall, not some extension cord. What  _ was _ this place??

She took another look at the lamp itself and realized that it looked familiar. She briefly recalled, in a thousand lifetimes ago, how Paula had inherited a set from her mother. She looked to the nightstand on the other side of the bed and, sure enough, there was its twin. How did her captors manage to acquire these lamps? How would they know where to look? 

Still holding the lamp very securely in her arms, at the ready to smack anything that moved, she crouched and began to take more stock into her surroundings.

Before she could gather much more information, she heard a loud  _ thunk! _ come from outside the closed door. She froze. She silently cursed at herself; she should have been quieter. They know that she’s up now. 

She heard some more sounds, almost frantic sounding, and then a soft, “Maxine?”

She gasped, dropped the lamp, screamed “Paula!”, and yanked the door open. She had no idea what she was running into, but she knew that, united, they could do anything. 

She entered the hallway, crashing against the wall in her hurry, causing something to fall and crash to the floor, but she paid no mind. Paula was at the other end of the hallway and they ran to each other, colliding in the middle. Arms grasping, pulling, limbs entangling, hands in each other’s hair. She pulled back slightly only to smash her lips against Paula’s, allowing a small whimper to escape, tears silently falling down her face, rejoicing in feeling her return the kiss with a similar fevor. 

She pulled back again, breathing hard, pressing her forehead against hers, staring into her warm, brown eyes, glasses slightly fogging up, so grateful that she had her, she had Paula, that they weren’t separated again, that they had each other for whatever fresh new horror they were about to experience. She whispered, “What happened? Where are we?”

She could see that tears were also streaming down her face. Paula’s eyebrows furrowed and she said, “I - I’m not sure. I didn’t really have time to look. I just - just panicked and looked for you. This is going to sound crazy, but I think we are in  _ our house _ .”

“ _ Our house?  _ You mean from before? I - I did find your mother’s lamps. Remember those? The room was too dark to see much else, at least before I heard you.”

She turned her head to get a better look at the hallway they were in, still holding tightly onto Paula. There was light streaming in from the other end, illuminating the pictures on the walls. 

She recognized these pictures, these frames, these small snippets of a previous life. She knew them. She knew the couple smiling back happily in a park, the same couple in wedding dresses looking happier and young and so full of life, the family portraits, the cousins, the grandparents. She knew them all. She knew this hallway. She knew those lamps, she knew that room. 

She turned to look back at Paula, saw the warring emotions of wonder and horror displayed on her face, probably mirroring her own, and gasped, “H - Ho - HOW is this real?” Paula just stared back, equally dumbfounded.

Still clutching tightly, she dragged Paula back into their -  _ their room _ \- and turned the light on. She stared at the switch for a while, not believing that it actually worked, until Paula nudged her forward. 

This was indeed their room. Other than the broken lamp now on the floor and the sheets dragged off from the bed and the chest that was kicked haphazardly in her panic, it was exactly as she remembered it. The dresser with more photos of them and their friends, the Xena fanart she had framed and posted on her side of the room, much to Paula’s chagrin at the time the vanity with the mirror on Paula’s side. She could see themselves in the reflection, not recognizing the younger, frightened, clean, unmarked faces.

She hugged Paula tighter to herself and whispered, “How is any of this real?”

Paula just shrugged and dragged the both of them to her nightstand, staring at the small calendar she kept there. Staring at the date. A date that was  _ three months before Z-Day _ . 

Paula reached out a shaky hand to grab the calendar and brought it closer, up to their faces. They both stared. Maxine then noticed the phone that was charging on the nightstand, and picked that up too. 

The screen came to life as it was brought up to their faces, next to the calendar, and she nearly dropped it then, in surprise. When was the last time that she held a phone? Let alone one that  _ worked _ . A fully charged phone. A phone that had the same date as the calendar. 

It was such a simple thing. Just letters and numbers on a screen.  _ A screen _ . Such a small thing. But it was turning her whole world upside down. She knew, from a time long ago, that she couldn’t deny the truth of the phone’s date. It confirmed the calendar’s date without a doubt. If not for Paula still holding on securely to her, she would have swayed. She felt lightheaded. 

She whispered, “This...this isn’t possible.”

“And yet...it is. We are here. Before Z-Day.”

“But how? What about Abel? And Janine? Sam? Jody? Five? Peter? Everyone?! You know who I’m talking about, right?”

“Of course. How could I forget?”

“But then... _ how _ ? How could we remember a whole life we lived, a life that apparently hasn’t happened yet? It’s not possible.” 

“I’m not arguing with you, darling. Was it a dream?”

“I had a dream this morning, and let me tell you, that was not it. Besides, how is it possible that we had the  _ same dream _ ?”

Paula merely shrugged, a sad, fond smile gracing her lips and whispered, “What about - what about the others? Are they real? Where are they?”

A sudden realization made Maxine’s stomach drop, her limbs erupted into goosebumps, her eyes widened in horror, and she breathed out, “ _ Sara _ .”

She could see the same horror work its way slowly through Paula. She choked back a sob, slamming a hand against her mouth. “Oh no, no no no.  _ Sara _ .”

She could feel her heart breaking, pain pouring out from that wound, enveloping her. How is any of this POSSIBLE? How could she have lived a whole life before it happened?? WHERE IS HER BABY?

She clutched at Paula, sobs overcoming her. After everything they’ve lived through, all of the people they lost, everything they’ve survived, this was the absolute worst thing that fate could throw at her. Because she was granted with a miracle, the miracle of Sara’s existence, the family they shared with her. And for none of that to be real apparently? Is this the dream instead? Is she just stuck in some nightmarish hellscape, some alternate universe her subconscious created to instill such horror into her dreaming world?

She started pinching herself, hoping with all hope, that this was just the dream.  _ This _ was the dream. Not the zombie apocalyptic world. Because she needed that to be real. She needed Sara and Sam and Five and Janine and Jody and Peter and -

In the distance, they heard the small, undeniable sound of a baby’s cry. They both froze.

**Author's Note:**

> I do love cliffhangers! This is also all I had time to write and it felt like a good stopping point. I do not plan to leave it here, though. So take that as solace if needed.


End file.
